“Oh, you don’t have to.”
“And let you walk through Venice alone at one a.m.? I don’t think so.”
“Okay, fair point. A ride would be nice.”
“Great. Let me just lock up. You wanna wait for me outside? We’ll go through the back gate.”
“Sounds great.”
Gabe races upstairs to his loft and I head to the counter. He’d already told me I wasn’t paying for tonight’s session, but that’s insane. I’d spent hours in his chair, and he’d bought me dinner. I wasn’t about to let him work for free when we were just getting to know one another.
I place my money on the counter, tucking the crisp bills beneath a penholder by the register. And then I head outside through the courtyard and then the back gate. I glance around the empty alley, wondering where his car is when Gabe scares the shit outta me by coming up behind me.
“You ready?”
“Are we riding on your invisible unicorn?”
“Skateboard, actually,” he says, pulling a longboard from an alcove in the building as we pass it. Does he even fit on that thing?
I laugh. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Nope. It’s a nice night out.”
“I never learned to ride.”
“I’ll teach you, come on. I know just the place.”
It’s official, I have lost my ever-loving mind.
I sit at the top of the ramp, squealing like a little kid as Gabe roars toward me on his board, dodging at the last minute before hitting my legs that dangle over the edge. For a split second, he’s airborne and then he lands again with both feet on the board, throwing his body into the lean. He chuckles darkly and tells me to be quiet. We aren’t supposed to be here. The park closes at dusk, and they fence it off and cops patrol the walk so Venice’s finest junkies and hobos won’t use the space to shoot up and leave their needles lying around for kids to find the next morning.
Gabe runs up the slope and sits beside me on the half pipe.
“I like your laugh, Freckles,” he says.
I frown and cover my face. “Okay, you need to quit calling me that. I may have to get laser to have them removed.”
“Don’t you fucking dare.” He grins but bites his bottom lip as if he shouldn’t be smiling. “Do you believe in fate?”
I furrow my brow and laugh. “Yeah, I believe in fate.”
“Good. I never trust a woman who doesn’t.”
“Where are you going with this?”
“Way I see it, we have two choices. One, you ditch Clementine and Annie as your best friends and promote me.”
I scoff. “Well, Annie is easy enough. She’s barely said two words to me since your opening, but Clementine will fight you for that position, and that girl throws a wicked punch.”
“Okay, what about this? Clementine and I both take top position in a tie.”
“You on top, I could see that.” I nod, and then wrinkle my nose because there are some things a person just should never say out loud.
“Really?”
I bury my face in my hands. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
He grins, his lips turning up just one corner of his mouth. “Oh, I think you did.”